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Commentary

Protecting Advertisers, Publishers From Bot Clicks In Campaigns

Many publishers and advertisers alike cite ad fraud as a big problem in the industry — it cost advertisers an estimated $7 billion in 2016.

The good news: the
number of robot traffic detected on advertising campaigns in 2018 is 32%, down from 60% in 2017, according to a new report
from Dianomi, a native content marketing platform.

The bad news: that figure varies greatly by month, and in April 2017 was as high as 85%.

Dianomi’s
study, which looked at hundreds of publishers using its ad platform over six years, found that up to 90% of clicks generated in an ad campaign can come from bots.

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The study found bot
traffic varies greatly over time and by publishers. Since 2013, bots have averaged 38% of clicks, but have varied significantly - from 27% in 2014 to 60% in 2017.

The study noted
there “seemed to be little correlation between the size of the publisher in terms of the amount of clicks delivered and the percent of robot clicks.”

Robot clicks can
come from both fraudulent bots and “good” bots.

Most bots (24.3%) are “impersonators,” or “bots that assume false identities to bypass security
solutions,” according to Dianomi’s report.

“Good” bots are from companies like Google, which click on links to collect information from sites for its
search-engine algorithm.

A graphic in Dianomi’s study shows that on average, about 28.9% of clicks on sites are from bad bots, and 22.9% are from the good ones .(The rest are
from humans.)

What can publishers do to protect themselves from bots?

The Association of National Advertisers’ bot fraud report states: “Behind every
big bot problem, someone is paying a traffic source.”

“When sourcing traffic, publishers should carefully measure the traffic in the same ways that we recommend
advertisers do in the report and end relationships with traffic sources that have a high level of bot traffic,” Cabell De Marcellus, Chief Technology Officer at Dianomi, told Publishers
Daily.

And what should advertisers do?

“When buying clicks from a publisher or other source, you must carefully measure the amount of robot traffic that
may have been delivered,” the study advises. “Like measuring ad viewability of display advertising, measuring the number of robotclicks is critical to achieving ROI on your ad
spend.”

A third-party platform like Neustar, DoubleVerify, IAS or MOAT, for example, can analyze clicks and look for tell-tale signs of robot behavior, as well as automatically
void clicks coming from high-risk IP addresses, according to the report.

“Ask your ad partners to provide full transparency of the clicks with time, IP address, user agent and
other data, and whether they have validated or voided them,” the report added.

To be extra-cautious, advertisers could pass the clicks through a Google captcha for
authentication if they look suspicious.

Robert Barrows from R.M. Barrows, Inc. Advertising & Public Relations,
July 6, 2018 at 9:14 a.m.

The best way to combat "ad fraud" is to factor it into your advertising with some very easy-to-use advertising math that will actually let you quantify the relationship between your advertising and sales. The math is called "The Barrows Popularity Factor." The math will give you more of the information you need to make key marketing decisions with far less risk and it can help you increase your sales, increase your profit and decrease your risk. You can read more about the math at www.barrows.com/bpfinfo.html